MOSCOW, April 24 (RIA Novosti) - Russia began the defense of its ice hockey world championship crown on Friday with a convincing 5-0 victory over Germany in the Swiss city of Berne.
The 2008 gold medalists got off to a fast start as Oleg Saprykin and Ilya Kovalchuk fired them to a 2-0 lead within 10 minutes. With five minutes to go in the first period, Sergei Zinovyev gave the Russians a three-goal cushion that the Germans never threatened to overhaul.
The assists in the seven-minute flurry of goals came from Alexander Radulov, Anton Volchenkov and Oleg Tverdovsky.
Germany struggled to stay with their opponents all night, conceding their first penalty after just 31 seconds and having three players sin-binned in each of the first two periods. Another two players were penalized in the third period, with the team also called up once for having too many players on the ice.
After a scoreless second period, Anton Kuryanov made it 4-0 early in the third after he was put through one-on-one by Danis Zaripov's pass. Zaripov himself rounded off the scoring with the game's first power-play goal with nine minutes remaining, set up by Alexei Morozov and Ilya Nikulin.
Tournament hosts Switzerland and hockey minnows France make up the rest of Russia's group.
In the other early game on Friday, last year's silver medalists Canada beat Belarus 6-1 in the Zurich-Kloten Arena.
The 73rd annual International Ice Hockey Federation World Championships end in Berne on May 10
